Indran Amirthanayagam

Natacha Feliz Franco

Destino (Destiny), Desalojo (Sweeping Out), Estrellas (Stars), Mirar el sol (Look at the Sun), Natacha Feliz Franco, translated by Indran Amirthanayagam

Destino

El amor sucede,

está predestinado.

El verde de sus hojas

brota por la ciudad

Los conejos de Pascua

llevan la alegría en sus patas,

y en el trígono exacto

dos moléculas se encuentran

y explota el amor.

Destiny

Love happens,

it is predestined.

The leaves’ green

sprouts in the city

Easter rabbits carry

happiness in their feet,

and in the exact triangle

two molecules meet,

love explodes.

Desalojo

De repente, me provoca, encender un cigarrillo

y apagártelo en la punta de la nariz

Voy a dar una vuelta y cuando regrese

no quiero encontrarte en mi corazón.

Sweeping Out

Suddenly, I am tempted to light a cigarette

and put it out on the point of your nose.

I am going for a walk and when I come back

I don’t want to find you in my heart.

Estrellas

Cuando tú sonríes todas las estrellas

vienen a ver quién causó tal conmoción

en el universo.

Stars

When you smile all the stars

come to see what caused

such a stir in the universe.

Mirar el sol

Hoy es

el “Gran Eclipse Americano”

la Nasa, advierte

no observar el sol

Yo solo quiero mirar

tus ojos.

Look at the Sun

Today is

the Great American Eclipse.

NASA warns us

not to look at the sun.

I only want to stare

at your eyes.

Indran Amirthanayagam writes poetry in English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, and Haitian Creole. He is the author of twenty five books of poetry and poetry in translation, including Seer (Hanging Loose Press, 2024), The Runner's Almanac (Spuyten Duyvil, 2024), Origami: Selected Poems of Manuel Ulacia, Blue Window (Dialogos Books) The Migrant States (Hanging Loose Press 2020),Coconuts on Mars (Paperwall, 2019), Uncivil War (Mawenzi House (formerly TSAR), Canada, 2013), and the Paterson Prize-winning The Elephants of Reckoning (Hanging Loose, 1993). Amirthanayagam is a 2020 Foundation for Contemporary Arts fellow in poetry, and a past fellow of the New York Foundation for the Arts, the US/Mexico Fund for Culture, and the MacDowell Colony. He publishes poetry books with Sara Cahill Marron at Beltway Editions (www.beltwayeditions.com), edits The Beltway Poetry Quarterly; curates the reading series Poetry at Beltway Editions, He serves on the Board of DC-ALT. His blog is http://indranamirthanayagam.blogspot.com

Natacha Féliz Franco is a journalist, cultural facilitator and author of the poetry collection “Detrás de octubre” and the book of microfiction “9 caminos al cielo”. She is from the Dominican Republic